Last Call: 'Dunno'

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September 20, 2013

"Sittin Round Drunk in Houston" ﻿by Wayne White is on view at the David Shelton Gallery.﻿

"Dunno," a collection of paintings, is not Wayne White's most epic artistic endeavor in Houston. That would've been the 20-foot-long George Jones puppet head he built four years ago at Rice Gallery. But "Dunno" includes some of the work that has made White famous: word paintings, he calls them, in which he takes mass-produced midcentury landscapes and modifies them with colorful words or phrases that can provoke laughter or contemplation. One of these paintings may have been made while White was here building the Jones head: "Sittin Round Drunk in Houston." White's work has drawn greater interest during the past year, after he was the subject of the documentary "Beauty Is Embarrassing." It charted his artistic trajectory from his youth in Tennessee through a period as a puppet designer and voice actor for "Pee Wee's Playhouse" through his art direction on famous videos by musical acts such as Peter Gabriel and Smashing Pumpkins. White was in town recently for the opening of "Dunno," at the David Shelton Gallery, 3909 Main. 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday (the exhibit closes Saturday); 832 538-0924.